said the spider to the fly
by Jedi Buttercup
Summary: Sometimes, it's rolling up for a meeting with a woman who called me to 'find her guide', and finding myself face to face with the likes of an elder god's elder god instead.


**Title:** said the spider to the fly

 **Author:** Jedi Buttercup

 **Rating:** T/PG-13; gen

 **Disclaimer:** The words are mine; the worlds are not.

 **Summary:** _Sometimes, it's rolling up for a meeting with a woman who called me to 'find her guide', and finding myself face to face with the likes of an elder god's elder god instead._ 1100 words.

 **Spoilers:** Post-"Not Fade Away"; somewhere between books 10-12 for DF.

 **Notes:** For avamclean, for the drabble prompt, "A:tS/Dresden Files; Illyria  & Dresden; 'This isn't going to end well.'". Originally posted to LJ on August 22.

* * *

Over the years, I've run into a lot of beings that could bowl for wizards- plural- and collect a strike every time, barring insane luck. Bigfoot, the Queens of Faerie, Eldest Goat Gruff; names like theirs might fool you into thinking they belong in a Disney movie, but you taunt a being with the power to flatten you with their _thoughts_ at your own peril. Most of the time, I try to stay out of their way.

That doesn't help much when they're determined to get in mine. I don't think a year's gone by since I hung out my shingle as Harry Dresden, Wizard, that something out of my weight class hasn't bulled its way through my city. Sometimes I know it's coming in time to prepare a warm welcome; more often, I'm lucky to get a knock on the door before I end up in with zombie guts all over my rugs.

And sometimes, it's rolling up for a meeting with a woman who called me to 'find her guide', and finding myself face to face with the likes of an elder god's elder god instead.

I've met too many things that wore flesh masks to ignore my instincts when they speak up, but at that point in my life, I hadn't yet learned my lesson about overusing the Sight. No wizard can forget anything they've Seen, and when three quarters of those Sights stick to the back of your mind like rancid tar? There's a reason most warlocks are frothing at the mouth, froot loop crazy... and my own sanity's none too steady, depending on who you talk to.

I don't know what I'd expected to See that particular day, anyway. A ghoul, maybe, under all that rebelliously blue-streaked brown hair, or a lone Red Court bloodsucker? She was slight, several inches shorter than me, and there was something just a little awkward in the way she tilted her head at my arrival, like maybe the form she was used to wasn't quite proportioned the same as her human skin. But there was no submission whatsoever in her body language. I frowned, focused my will into a spot just between and above my eyebrows, and opened my Sight to take a look as I got out of my car.

What I Saw was something that put even Kincaid's shadow to shame. He's 'just' a scion; the young woman who'd identified herself as Fred Burkle was as far above that sort of being as Mab in all her glory to the sad sack she keeps frozen in her garden.

The shadowed form overlain on her human shell was... vast, in more ways than one; tall as a church steeple, helmed and mantled in layers of dark armor, four-armed and many-tentacled and carrying barbed, bladed weapons longer than I was tall. The weight of uncounted ages poured out of its aura, reeking of the breath of the tomb; everything and everyone else seemed cast into shade beside it, as though I was peering into the heart of a dark sun. For a long, long couple of seconds, I literally couldn't Look away, staring up and up at a figure that would give a shoggoth nightmares.

Either she was sensitive enough to the flows of power to notice what I was doing- or, more likely, she noticed me gaping over her head like an idiot and drew the obvious conclusion. Her welcoming expression went flat and chilly as I struggled to slam my Sight closed again, and by the time my vision cleared her eyes had gone a frozen, cracked-ice shade of blue to match the streaks in her hair.

"Wizard. You presume too much," she said, curling her lip at me.

Her tone raised the fine hairs along my spine; it felt as though someone had cracked a cold egg down my back. And not in the fun Harry Potter way, where you end up invisible at the end of it. It took more effort than usual to muster an attempt at my habitual flip response: "I _presume_ that Dr. Burkle is not the title I should have been prepared to meet."

Her eyes narrowed, and she took a step to the side- the first of a predatory stalk close enough to tempt me to open my mouth for her inspection. If I'd thought she'd understand the gesture, I probably would have; but the merest brush against the memory of what I'd Seen made me break out in a cold sweat at the thought of getting _that_ angry.

"You do not fear me," she observed, ignoring my question.

"Oh, I fear you plenty," I retorted, ignoring the quiver in my gut. "I just don't see the point in cowering in front of danger, when all that does is present a better target."

She completed the circle she'd just formed with her paces, and something primitive and atavistic dumped another shot of adrenaline in my veins. But she did nothing else; only tilted her head, unknown enormities of thought swimming in the depths of her gaze.

"You are not as fragile as most of your breed. I am Illyria, God-King of the Primordium, and I seek in this world the guide I lost in mine."

"You do, do you?" I managed. I really, really didn't like the sound of _any_ of that. At least two of the Laws were probably being flouted by her very existence, and the Council wasn't likely to be lenient with anyone, even a Warden, caught in her company. Much less helping her. "I, uh, usually charge a two day minimum..."

A slight, chill smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Why only two? Please me, and I shall leave this world intact indefinitely."

I swallowed dryly. I had no doubt she could wreak every bit of havoc she hinted at if I refused- and if she'd called _me_ , she'd been here long enough to do her research. Who would she go to, if I turned her down? I could only imagine the expression on Gentleman Johnny's face.

But if I didn't? _That_ would be an interesting balancing act to achieve; trying to discover and thwart her ultimate goals without earning her ire, getting blue-on-blued by my own people, or endangering innocent bystanders. I couldn't imagine it ending well.

Good thing I've never been much of a one for making present decisions based on future consequences.

"You drive a hard bargain, Your Overlordness," I bared my teeth, slipping a hand in my pocket and gripping my blasting rod. "What, exactly, did you have in mind?"

-x-


End file.
